IF

I didn’t relate to “Ice Box” by Omarion when I was 11 years old, but it was still on my MP3 player. Summer 2007 in Kansas City was the first time I was able to listen to music with my own agency. I had a small MP3 player, barely bigger than the AA battery that powered it. It had an auxiliary port on one end and a USB stick on the other. I got my songs from copying CDs from my Dad’s collection and putting them on windows media player before importing them onto my player. For some reason my dad had a CD of Omarion’s 2006 album, 21, and so did I as a result. Upon listening, I pulled a few of my favorites. “Ice Box” is the only song I remember and I certainly relate now. 

“I got an ice box where my heart used to be.” 

I haven’t really been jaded by prior experiences. No woman has ever treated me poorly or at least beyond a reasonable point. Most of my anxiety is set somewhere off in the future, in fear of the ice eating woman. If I were to say I have a fear, it is of women who eat ice without a beverage, without flavor, and with no regard for the weather. Ice eating women give me the heebiejeebies. 

PROBABLY 

I can’t recall any specific failed love that ate ice. I guess what I should say is that they probably eat ice or at least they should have. In my mind, a woman who loves me eats ice. She’d know how much I hate it or how much I don’t understand the allure. She’d probably prefer crushed ice in a styrofoam 32 oz gas station cup but she’d eat the cubes from the fridge if given no other choice. She’d eat ice every day until it gave her the chills. She’d smile at me and her wintry breath would freeze me solid. One day, I would probably ask her why she liked eating ice. 

“For practice,” she would say. 

MAYBE 

I think that one day, she would have had her fill of ice. Her mouth eternally gelid mouth would hunger for something more. She’d eat glaciers and icebergs. She would eat the earth, and if hell froze over then she’d eat that too. She would save me for last because who’s to say she doesn’t love me? But one day, the ice eating woman would hunger for something could to chew on. And on that day, maybe she would eat my heart. She’d bite into my icy heart with her teeth and not even flinch. She’d chomp at every chamber until my heart sat in her stomach, crushed to pieces. 

🦋

published May 13, 2022